Review: "300"

I had a sneaking suspicion the new film "300" wouldn’t work for me, but since I had this blasted itch to see something new (despite ever rising theater prices) I took the plunge.

Unfortunately, my feelings were dead on.

Movies like "Letters From Iwo Jima" reflect the contemporary belief that any war movie worth its salt must capture the horror of armed combat.

"300," on the other hand, believes it's enough to capture the fun of watching a war movie on a weekend afternoon. Set to stylized action and crunching guitar riffs, the film is cartoonish and as subtle as a spear thrust to the head.

Based on the well-received comic book miniseries from "Sin City" creator Frank Miller, this would-be historical epic is loaded with wall-to-wall graphic violence and gore (swordfire, arrowfire, slashings, stabbings, beheadings, creature attacks and explosive mayhem), male and female nudity, simulated sex and some sexual violence, and some sexually suggestive talk and humor. It’s a faithful-to-a-fault adaptation that recreates specific panels from the comic. How this R rated film avoids NC-17 is anyone’s guess. A thin plot, puffed up dialogue, and underdeveloped characters do nothing to leaven the film’s long battle scenes. The fighting makes up almost half the film’s 144 minutes.

The film is based on the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan warriors died almost to the last man to delay an invading Persian army of millions (these events also inspired a 1962 movie version, "The 300 Spartans").

Scottish actor Gerard Butler ("Phantom of the Opera") stars here as Leonidas, the king who led the Spartan defense. In this version of events, his numbers were reduced because Sparta’s ephors, sacred priests, and key politicians taking Persian gold declared a sacred holiday to hamstring the army from mobilizing. So with hand-picked troops serving as his personal guard, Leonidas takes a "stroll" to northern Greece. There he joins with fearful Greek allies to block key mountain paths and funnel the Persians into a narrow pass dubbed the "Hot Gates," where the defenders can face a few hundred by dribs and drabs.

The Persian king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro, Brazil’s "Tom Cruise" cum "Lost" TV actor) sends wave after wave of soldiers at the determined Spartans. Leonidas and his comrades slaughter thousands, but can't hold the line forever. Back home, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) hopes to rally the full Spartan army. The duplicitous councilman Theron (an oily Dominic West) clearly implies that the price of his support is her.

But after taking payment, Theron reneges on his deal. The queen collects with interest, though, when she plunges a sword into his stomach. A handy purse loaded with Persian Darics, or gold coins, then spills to the ground, exposing Persian duplicity in the Spartans’ midst. By this time, it’s too late as Leonidas and his band finally fall to Xerxes’ minions.

Unlike the earlier, sedate by comparison 1962 film, which got most of the history right, "300" obsesses with giving the Spartans credit for every Persian slain at Thermopylae. So much so it misses their true noble sacrifice, that once Xerxes outflanked them, the 300 Spartans (as well as 700 Thespian soldiers) remained on the battlefield to cover the retreat of the rest of the Greek army.

This Alamo-like sacrifice unites Greece against Persia the following year at the plain of Platea, where Dilios finishes his story of Leonidas’ stand and leads the charge against the dread Persian hordes.

Co-writer/director Zack Snyder ("Dawn of the Dead") borrows the computer-crafted look of "Sin City." The fakery makes the stupendous slaughter digestible, and the wholesale dismemberment and blood-squirting can be done digitally, with "Matrix"-style acrobatics.

The fanciful depiction of the horrific battle also allows Snyder to integrate fantasy elements - the Spartans battle a giant ogre, and there's another creature with crab-claw hands who executes ineffective generals at the whim of Xerxes, who himself looks like a seven-foot-tall Dennis Rodman after a shopping/piercing spree.

The cinematography lacks the rugged vitality, and the dynamism, of Miller's drawings, though. Miller's "300" pictures leap off the page; on the movie screen, they roll over and play dead. The film has a poreless, waxen quality, as if all sensuality had been airbrushed out of it: the Spartans glow, while the Persians gleam darkly. The actors struggle valiantly to take hold of their characters, but deep down they know they've donated their bodies, and their faces, to science.

The film owes a debt to "Gladiator" as well as the "Lord of the Rings" movies. "Rings" co-star David Wenham appears here, narrating a few segments as Dilios, a one-eyed survivor of the Spartans’ stand.

Butler's blustery performance was clearly inspired by Russell Crowe, though it has none of Crowe's subtlety.

There's something to be said for a movie that pauses amid an orgy of violence to show us an actual orgy - Xerxes' tent houses a harem of naked, squirming bisexual slave girls, a few of whom are amputees. The movie, obsessed with machismo, seems to suggest that the Persians need to be stopped because they are sexually ambiguous. Ironic since the washboard-abbed Spartans in their scarlet cloaks and brown loincloths look ready to break into a chorus of "YMCA" any second.

Clearly, this isn’t "Letters From Iwo Jima." "300" makes no bones about embracing the glory of war (or the glory of a comic strip based on a movie about a war), and romanticizing the Spartan warrior culture ("never surrender, " "never retreat," "hope for a beautiful death") that entranced Miller as a boy.

Miller chose well with Thermopylae . It’s a cinema-ready event that produced dialogue that no dramatist could improve, recorded by Herodotus and repeated here. "Come back with your shield, or on it," says Gorgo to Leonidas. When Xerxes asks the Spartans to lay down their arms, Leonidas says, "Come and get 'em." And when a Persian general brags "Our arrows will blot out the sun, " a Spartan answers "Then we will fight in the shade."

Along the way, "300" does give us a sense of why Thermopylae is considered pivotal to history. It casts the Spartans as defenders of Western civilization (freedom and self-rule and "reason") against Xerxes, a self-proclaimed man-god supported by slave armies who fought with whips at their backs. The Spartans had slaves, but did their own fighting.

Generally unknown to most people is that in the following century, the Spartans went on to establish an empire of their own—and fail miserably. A bastion of democracy and freedom indeed. Also left out is the fact that prior to the Persian invasion of Greece, Athens and Sparta had tried to incite uprisings among several of Persia’s neighboring subject peoples. Freedom to the ancient Greeks equaled freedom to aggrandize themselves. The Spartans were oligarchs, while the Athenians were democrats. Athenian democracy was for Athenians, though, not other Greeks much less foreigners.

Here's an article that goes over how well "300" matches up with history.


"300" has caused a stir in Europe, where debate has begun on whether the film is an apologia for Bush's Iraq adventure or an apologia for anti-occupation suicide missions.

I’ll go out on a limb and guess this won’t matter much to Millers' fans. They're concerned with more important things, like how to disable and defeat an ogre by first cutting his hamstring, then stabbing him in the eye and slicing him open at the neck.

REVIEW: "LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA"

"Letters From Iwo Jima," Clint Eastwood's spare and poetic companion piece to "Flags of Our Fathers," is an engrossing and revealing look at that same World War II battle. This time it’s told from the viewpoint of the doomed Japanese soldiers who want to believe the propaganda that tells them they are destined to win because "Americans are weak-willed and inferior. ... They let their emotions interfere with their duty...."

"Letters" is the film I was hoping for from "Flags": a war narrative, expertly told, powerfully acted and filled with moments of brutal truth and savage grace.

"Flags" looked at Iwo Jima from the U.S. point of view, focusing in particular on the Marines and the Navy corpsman who became symbols of American heroism when a photographer snapped a picture of the men raising the flag atop the Iwo Jima mountain that the Japanese called (we learn in "Letters") Suribachi. The movie jumped back and forth in time, and played out somewhat like an overlong thesis paper: Eastwood tells us from the start that the film is going to critique the ways in which military action and sacrifice are spun into myth by government propagandists, so we learn little new by the time the movie ends 132 minutes later.

"Letters" avoids this problem by pretty much adhering to a linear narrative. Although the film opens in the present day with diggers on Iwo Jima uncovering a cache of Japanese letters from the war, the story quickly moves into the past, and we soon forget we are watching a sort of flashback.

As a chronicler of one of the most monumental battles in modern history, Eastwood not only has the scope of vision to show how, on a grand scale, the battle progressed for the defenders in strictly military terms, but also the little details about the Japanese soldiers themselves. A lesser director would have gone for stock heroics or brave samurais committing suicide. This is a quieter, braver film than that, preferring to focus instead on real-life people.

The script, whose Japanese dialogue is translated through subtitles, is by newcomer Iris Yamashita, with story input from one of "Flags"' screenwriters Paul Haggis ("Million Dollar Baby," "Crash," and "The Black Donnellys"). Credit is also given to the letters for home written by the Japanese soldiers who defended Iwo Jima and the personal correspondence of the commanding Japanese general Tadamichi Kuribayahi, titled "Picture Letters From Commander in Chief."

As in "Flags," we see how soldiers become unwitting fodder for their country's war effort. The flawed "Flags" tells the story of the three American men who obeyed their superior officers and willingly accepted the guise of heroic mascots in a public relations blitz to raise support for the war on the home front. "Letters" instead focuses on the 36-day battle for the island of Iwo Jima. We're confronted with images of Imperial Japanese military men who not only are expected to serve their emperor and suffer starvation, disease, and overwhelming odds in his name but also die by either their own hand or the enemy's rather than face the cultural ignominy of defeat. Again, Eastwood uses the muted color palette employed in "Flags," rendering the island's muck and caves in nearly black-and-white tones, brightened only by the flash of a gun muzzle or iconic flag.

In "Flags" we saw how the Americans were lured onto the beaches of Iwo Jima by the silence of the Japanese who were holed up in the island's mountain caves while holding their fire until the troops became sitting ducks. "Letters" takes us inside those caves, where the outnumbered Japanese soldiers--suffering from dysentery, hunger, and demoralization--still held onto their ideals of dying honorably for their country. Just a handful of men we are shown think through their objectives for themselves.

When the Americans finally appear, swarming ashore in well-armed, well-fed waves, the Japanese fight, but more out of a sense of their backs being to a wall (propaganda having told them that the Americans are not only weak and emotional soldiers, but savages who won't take them prisoner) than any airy notion of Duty or Honor.

These men could easily be stand-ins for the members of the American Confederacy. Theirs is a story of individuals fighting a losing battle valiantly, which is always romantic. And, in this case, epic.

The structure of "Letters" is fairly basic, following a mix of soldiers from different ranks as they get ready for the inevitable American invasion. It's the dead end of the war, with the Japanese Combined Fleet and air force almost entirely destroyed, and the island's garrison digging in for a desperate last stand--Iwo Jima was the first island considered actual Japanese territory to be assaulted by the Americans, and so had extra significance.

The screenplay brings to life four indelible characters, all of whom know there is little chance they'll leave the island alive. Lt. Gen. Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe of "Last Samurai," "Batman Begins," and "Memoirs of a Geisha") is the untraditional officer, in command of Iwo Jima’s garrison. He fights with the irony that, having spent time in the United States before the war as a military attache, he reveres Americans and understands the industrial and resource mismatch Japan faces.

Saigo (Japanese pop star Kazunari Ninomiya) is an irreverent young baker who just wants to stay alive to see his newborn daughter.




The aristocratic Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara) is a famous equestrian who competed in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.

Private Shimizu (Ryo Kase) was trained in the elite school for the Kempeitai, the Gestapo-style military police charged with maintaining Japan’s internal security and the people’s patriotism. But Shimizu found himself shipped off to Iwo Jima for disobeying orders to kill a dog. We see, as well, the old-guard officers who would shoot any soldier who tries to surrender, and who, when defeat seems inevitable, order their men to die with honor by blowing themselves up with grenades. Eastwood's depiction of the horrors of war--and the atrocities committed on both sides--has a shocking intimacy.

At Iwo Jima--where, presumably, the stars of "Flags" are elsewhere storming the beaches--a cross section of post-feudal, pre-modern Japanese society mounts a defense of the volcanic island (of black sand and no charm), which is considered part of the Japanese homeland. The dichotomous relationship between the officer class and the enlisted men in the Japanese force is one of the more poignant aspects of "Letters."

Some like General Tadamichi and Baron Nishi, who live the imperial tradition of bushido as an honorable birthright. Gentlemen warriors both, they sip wine and bemoan this age of mechanized warfare and the mindless, dehumanizing nationalism gripping their beloved homeland.


Other officers, like Lieutenant Ito (Shidou Nakamura of "Fearless") have made it into a form of fundamentalism that ultimately proves poisonous to the Japanese cause.


"Letters from Iwo Jima" somewhat dispels the barbaric image of the Japanese soldier who history has taught us would commit suicide before being caught and would kill his fellow soldier rather than allow him to surrender. And though many Japanese did follow their emperor’s murderous and suicidal orders, "Letters" also shows the other humanistic side of the soldiers who longed to be home with their loved ones; who didn’t want to die rather than be captured; and who didn’t necessarily believe that this piece of rock was worth getting killed over. Not one to take sides, Eastwood doesn’t mince images in portraying the brutal side of the American soldiers either, particularly when they assassinate in cold blood two Japanese soldiers who had surrendered in good faith.

Unlike in "Flags," Eastwood spends more time exposing the back-stories of the soldiers and, more interestingly, the claustrophobic surroundings they were forced to live in during the battle. These young men were stationed in miles and miles of tunnels built within the mountain caves, and the viewer senses the dour and unsanitary living conditions these soldiers had to endure, and the psychological damage that such a confinement can create. In fact, while there were more battle scenes in "Flags," here most of the action takes place within the caves with focus centred almost exclusively on the characters' emotional and spiritual downfall.

Context can magnify the impact of art, and it seems obvious that "Letters from Iwo Jima" derives some of its current power from the fact that the United States has been embroiled for almost four years in a war in Iraq against a foe that is little understood by Americans.

Whatever profound differences distinguish the current conflict from World War II, a similarity is the reality that the enemy (on every side) is defined most forcefully in ways that are expedient to the political aims of the war's promoters--in ways that demonize the "otherness" of the foe.

Part of Eastwood's achievement in "Letters" is to erase this otherness. "Be proud to die for your country," a Japanese officer tells a soldier, just as his American counterpart might; "Always do what is right, because it is right," an American mom writes her soldier son in a letter read aloud in the film by an admiring Japanese translator. Another of Eastwood's achievements is to demonstrate that the ideas conveyed by these quotes can be contradictory, even if some people might consider such a notion subversive.

Such messages would be ineffective if "Letters from Iwo Jima" weren't a frequently exciting film and a model of classical movie storytelling and craftsmanship. Just as "Unforgiven" is a Western and "Million Dollar Baby" is a fight film, whatever ideas those Eastwood features might otherwise convey, "Iwo Jima" is thoroughly rewarding as a straight war movie. (The leisurely buildup to the carnage might frustrate those more interested in explosions than emotions, however; the sirens heralding the first U.S. attack don't sound until 45 minutes into the 142-minute film, and the invasion itself doesn't occur until 11 minutes later.)

Upon Tadamichi’s arrival to Iwo Jima, Kuribayashi orders an immediate halt to all the trench-digging at Iwo’s black-sand beaches much to the dismay of convention-bound officers overseeing their fortification. The beach will fall to the Americans no matter what, he argues; the battle for the island will have to be fought from under Iwo Jima. He orders his men to excavate miles of tunnels connecting the island's caves instead of relying on machine-gun bunkers on the beaches to stop the enemy.

By the time the massive U.S. armada is spotted on the horizon, more than 18 miles of tunnels have been dug under Iwo's crust and throughout Mount Suribachi, the volcanic mass anchoring the island (and atop which the American flag would soon be raised).
The American commanders figured it would take five days to capture Iwo Jima, a barren volcanic island, and make it a beachhead for their final attack on Japan.
The Japanese were badly outnumbered, their fleet was destroyed and fighter planes had been redeployed to defend the Mainland. Ammunition and medicine was in short supply, dysentery was raging, morale was low, and the Japanese troops were subsisting on a diet of worms, weed soup and foul water. Told that death defending the "sacred homeland" island of Iwo Jima is an honorable fate, the wry Saigo says of a fellow soldier's expiration: "Kashiwara died of honorable dysentery."


But the battle rages on for a remarkable six weeks, at a cost of 20,000 Japanese troops Only 136 surrendered to the Americans, who took over 7000 casualties. This Alamo-like last stand, masterminded by Kuribayashi, anticipated the tactics of the Viet Cong used against American soldiers in the Vietnam War.

Kuribayashi's unconventional strategy is derided especially by the more fanatical officers like Lt. Ito, though. Ito leads a mutiny after U.S. troops take Mount Suribachi--the famous raising of the flag is seen, strikingly, from a great distance. Ironically, Ito is one of the few taken prisoner by the end.

"Letters" has some of the same problems as "Flags," though, most notably a certain cool remove from its subjects, though it benefits from a much tighter focus and a higher quality of acting. Eastwood seems at times unwilling to really throw the viewer into the savagery of the fighting (Iwo Jima being one of the most vicious and drawn-out battles ever waged), almost as though he knows that by giving us more thrilling battle scenes, he may be shocking viewers, but he'll also be thrilling them. It appears that one of the great progenitors of American cinematic violence has finally just become sick of it all. He knows that however brave the soldiers, smart the strategy, or necessary the struggle, war is always by definition a bloody waste. The tragedy of this film is not just that the Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima died for no reason, but how many of them died knowing it.

While it lacks the theoretical complexity and timely importance of "Flags,"
"Letters" is a significant development in the genre: No American war film, let alone one made during a time of war, ever embedded itself so deeply in the enemy camp. Even "Tora! Tora! Tora!" relied on Japanese filmmakers to tell the "other side" of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Tellingly, Eastwood offers a very different version of a "Flags" scenario in which a young Marine is yanked off the battlefield and sadistically tortured to death. Here, a seriously wounded U.S. soldier is pulled into a cave and tenderly nursed by Lt. Colonel Nishi, and the act of mercy leads to the film's strongest moment. He tells the American boy (in one of two brief English-language segments) of a long-ago visit from Hollywood royalty Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. As Nishi translates aloud the dying soldier's final letter from home, the Japanese soldiers draw closer, each hanging on every word as if it had been written by his own mother.

In a magical instant, all that separates two nations at war disappears. This is sentimentality of the best kind, a touching display of male bonding amid terror and aching loneliness.

Even as it promotes understanding, the movie doesn't dilute reality. The harsh conditions of Japanese military service and the grim finality of certain Japanese traditions aren't denied. We see an officer beating two "unpatriotic" soldiers with a bamboo cane, and ritual suicide with grenades is depicted graphically.

Like its predecessor, "Letters" is staggeringly impressive as a technical achievement; one can only be amazed and inspired that Eastwood chose to tackle the most logistically complicated and ambitious movies of his career as a septuagenarian (he's now 76). Like "Flags," the movie is almost entirely leached of color; only the explosions of bombs and the sunburst of the Japanese flag add shades of red to the brown and gray.

Unlike "Flags," the movie was complicated by its language: "Letters" was shot in Japanese, with English subtitles translating the dialogue for U.S. viewers, which may discourage the casual U.S. viewer. "Letters" is a hit in Japan, though. Apparently, the language barrier that existed between Eastwood and his actors didn't hurt the film. In the case of "Letters," it would never have worked without the Japanese dialogue, the tone of the language being as essential to the characters' identity as their devotion to duty and resolve to fight to the death.

Directed by Eastwood without a false note, this is a powerful, brilliantly acted film that presents war as a necessary kind of hell in which there are no true victors. Superbly acted, unblinking and unhysterical, it looks beyond politics into the hearts and minds of the men we needed to call "the enemy," and lets us see ourselves.


Conceived after the first film was in production and made at a fraction of the cost, its director dismissed it in early interviews as "my little indulgence." "Letters" was supposed to be a tag-on coda to "Flags." If "Flags" is more complex in its ambitions and structure, the leaner, simpler "Letters" is even more emotionally devastating. Eastwood’s movie stands in the company of the greatest antiwar movies.

"The Black Donnellys"

I saw the Monday night premiere of "The Black Donnellys."

Awesome beginning.

A real, gritty show with interestingly flawed characters. Sure, the mob thing has been done before, but who cares? At this point, you're not going to come up with some amazingly original idea...all you can do is try to put out something that is entertaining and engaging...and this show definitely does that. The storytelling style is much like the movie "Goodfellas" as it has occasional narration. The character that does the narration is great...his delivery has a lot of personality and humor to it.

I'm not usually into mob stories, but I saw it since a UCLA mentor of mine, Laurie Hutzler, was part of the writing staff.

I heard vaguely that critics don't like the show and that it got low ratings following "Heroes," but I hope viewers and NBC give this show a chance.

The characters are compelling and the writing is exquisite. The acting is also good. It is insanely interesting and the excitement keeps building throughout the episode. A lot of thought and effort went into this series and episode and I would hate to see it fail without viewers even giving it a chance. The music score also goes along perfectly.

I loved the character development, loved the story line, and loved the over all atmosphere of the episode. I also liked that the story was being told from another character's point of view, Joey Ice Cream, from some time in the future as he sits being questioned by the police. It sets the tone right there, that there is more to this story, more to come.

The first 30 minutes without commercial breaks were great. I thought it helped pull people further into the story. We got enough background information to know what’s going on, but doesn't drag on so that people don't lose interest. It was also nice to see the different personalities of each of the brothers . . . Nice twist on the typical mob formula. Irish (not Italian) and late teens, early 20s. Not to mention the love story that is right under the surface. I am sure it will lead to some interesting conflict to go along with keeping the neighborhood under control.

Jimmy's plan to help Kevin out of gambling debt backfires, forcing the two to kidnap local mob boss Sal Minnetta's nephew Louie. When Sal's right-hand-man Nicky Cottero decides to take the matters into his own hands, it's up to Tommy to set things right.

Not sure if it can sustain the quality of the pilot...we'll see where it goes from here, but the pilot was great.

LARRY HODGES FOR SFWA PRESIDENT

Fantasy writer Larry Hodges, a friend of mine, is being encouraged (tongue in cheek) to run for SFWA office in 2008.

Normally, I don't pay attention to such things. But the thought of his candidacy makes me go "hmmm..." :-)

Here's his platform:

OK, OK, I'm being drafted, so here's my Platform for President. My main goal is in regard to the name "Science Fiction Writers of America." I'd like to do the following:

*Take the "Science" out since science is really hard; *Take the "Fiction" out and start telling the truth; *Take the "Writers" out since writing is really hard; *Take the "America" out so the rest of the world will stop hating us.

Once the above has passed, and our name has changed from "SFWA" to "", we can move on to more important stuff, such as allowing fictional characters to join (Paul Sheldon, Jack Torrance, Karen Eiffel, Mort Rainey, and that "jkjkjkjkjkjkjkjk" guy*) and blaming all problems facing "" on that small minority of members who write good or sell too many books, making the rest of us look bad. (We're going to require all Nebula & Hugo winners and Times Best Sellers to wear little yellow stars so we can identify them when we start rounding them up.)

-Larry (will take bribes) Hodges Candidate for President of "" Vote the Hate in 2008!

*Bet nobody can identify all five, especially the "jkjkjkjkjkjkjkjk" guy!

"Stars and Stripes Forever" Coverage Report

Today, I got my coverage report on my nautical tale "Stars and Stripes Forever."

The reader, a guy I think, gave me a ton of high marks across the board. Plot, dialogue, etc. are fine. And the concept of a real-life navy lieutenant struggling to destroy an American frigate captured by pirates is "compelling."

I just need to work on some character relationships and rearrange some scenes and sequences. I also have to deal with the situation that historical scripts are harder to sell than contemporary stories and it's on the water, making it harder and more expensive to film.

Ergo the script has to be virtually perfect.

Nice challenge.

It's "one great rewrite or two away from being something special" and "it's close, but not quite there yet."

For now, it's a "Pass."

I'll see about reworking it when I get the chance.

I expect it'll do well in contests, though. And I think I may want to write the novel before marketing the script, too. That would help sell the script if the book did well.

Anyhow, the wheels are in motion.

Abrams May Not Direct Trek XI

A few days ago, SyFy Portal reported that Abrams may jump from Trek XI to direct an adaptation of Stephen King's "Dark Tower" horror series.

The Trek XI production has been the most circus-like of all films to date.

When Abrams was brought on, he at first denied that it would be about TOS. Then he and his collaborators said Kirk deserves to live again and they can't believe they're the ones hired to do the film.

Then Abrams said he may not be the right person to direct depending on the script--which he and his collaborators are hyping as being stellar. I seem to recall that was the early word on "Nemesis" too.

And then Abrams "confirms" that he'll direct the film after getting a nice contract. Didn't he already have one when he was brought on in the first place?

Now Abrams may bolt Trek XI for Stephen King's latest horror story adaptation.

If Abrams loves Trek so much, I can't help but wonder why he won't commit to it?

Why is he always jumping from one project to another, neither here nor there? The best Hollywood producers/directors stick with their projects from beginning to end: Ron Moore, Joss Whedon, Steven Spielberg, etc.

I felt from the beginning that a reinvented TOS film is the wrong direction for Trek long term and that Abrams is the wrong person to helm it for a variety of reasons.

But as long as Abrams' Bad Robot production company is on the job, it'll likely go ahead with the young Kirk and Spock story. Abrams may just delegate someone else to do it (like he did with "Alias" and "Lost"), while he plays with Stephen King's brain child--until something else catches his attention span for a few months.

I'll be curious to see if Trek XI will stay on its schedule.

I'm sad to see Trek in such a rudderless state of limbo nowadays.

"Heaven's Mandate" Coverage

I'm a little late in reporting this...

On February 12, 2007, I got a ScriptShark Notes Plus coverage report on my Chinese Joan of Arc tale.

The script is good, but there's room for some character development, which I'll be happy to do. I just have to find the time...

The reader gave me a "Reluctant Pass." Even though it's not a "Consider" or "Recommend," it doesn't seem too bad. She? (something about the report's phrasing) pointed out that Hollywood isn't interested in Chinese period pieces in general, which I know. I was pretty much aiming for Hong Kong from the start. I will see what I can do to approach James Schmaus's "Rogue Film" company.

I wanna get Schmaus's "Crouching Tiger" collaborator, Ang Lee, to direct. :-)

Ronny Yu ("Fearless") strikes me as a good second choice.

I'm afraid that Zhang Yimou's films don't work for me: "Hero," "House of Flying Daggers," and "Curse of the Golden Flower."

I may still sub "Heaven's Mandate" as is (it won in the 2006 UCLA contest after all) to a few contests in 2007, but maybe not every one of 'em because it's not high on Hollywood's list of fave genres and most especially to save myself some money .

We'll see.

At least I've got ideas for making this opus even better.

"Stars and Stripes Forever" Excerpt

On February 17, 2007, I subbed electronically an American "Master and Commander" script of mine to the Blue Cat Screenplay Competition. Others will follow. I'm waiting a little bit partly because I'm waiting for a coverage report I purchased from ScriptShark. Fortunately, several fellow screenwriting mates of mine who looked at the story liked what the saw. :-)

I subbed to Blue Cat now because the deadline was approaching and I didn't want it to be overlooked by readers in a last minute overflow of submissions.

"Stars and Stripes" is based on real events centering around an American naval hero, Stephen Decatur.

Logline: A real-life naval lietuenant struggles to destroy an American frigate captured by pirates before she's unleashed against a young United States.

Here's an excerpt:
------------------------------------------------

INT. MALTA - GOVERNOR'S MANSION -- NIGHT

SUPERIMPOSITION:

MALTA

GOVERNOR'S MANSION

A genteel party of the highest Old World order unfolds in full swing.

A Spanish orchestra plays on a low dais. Glamorously dressed people dance to the orchestra's music.

LIEUTENANT STEPHEN DECATUR, 24, a Navy poster boy in full dress uniform, mingles with the elegant crowd of partygoers. Decatur converses with British Admiral ALEXANDER BALL, 60s, governor of Malta, a tall masthead of a man.

BALL
Most unfortunate the way your Commodore Morris' operations against the Mohammedan corsairs are faring.

Decatur looks to a small knot of American officers clustered around a middle-aged senior in captain's dress, RICHARD MORRIS.

DECATUR
The Barbary Pirates have preyed on shipping for centuries, sir. Your own Admiral Blake had but temporary success himself in these waters two hundred years earlier.
(beat)
My country's efforts are far from over.

BALL
I meant to imply nothing of the sort. The whole world wishes you success. I can imagine how frustrating it must be for the young enterprising officers of your squadron to suffer setback after setback. Service in the Royal navy would offer more... rewarding duty.

DECATUR
My thanks for your concern, sir, but the reward lies in serving flag and country...

Decatur trails off as he notices ELIZABETH BALL, late 20s, a self-reliant beauty,
on the ballroom floor. She's dancing a graceful waltz with Royal navy Lieutenant JAMES HAMILTON, late 20s, a dandy blue blood.

Admiral Ball follows Decatur's gaze.

BALL
Elizabeth, my daughter. Couldn't be prouder of her.

DECATUR
I'm sure she makes her husband very happy.

BALL
Still unmarried despite a trip to India. I've given up trying to match her.

DECATUR
(re: Hamilton)
Her dance partner?

BALL
James Hamilton, first lieutenant of His Britannic Majesty's frigate Hecate. He's the eldest son of one of England's leading families and my daughter's childhood friend.

DECATUR
She dances well.

BALL
It's her passion. She just learned a rather... spirited... dance in Madrid. The Fandango, I believe it's called. She has yet to find a partner here who'll go through it with her.

INT. DANCE FLOOR

Elizabeth and Hamilton are winding down their waltz.

They notice Decatur waiting for them at their end point. The other couples around them disperse for refreshments.

HAMILTON
What's all this in aid of?

Decatur bows formally.

DECATUR
Lieutenant Stephen Decatur. United States Navy.

HAMILTON
I don't believe I know that name... It's not English.

DECATUR
My grandfather was an officer in the French navy, who settled in America.
(to Elizabeth)
The Admiral was just telling me your ladyship was in need of a partner to follow you through a "spirited" Spanish dance. I've been to Barcelona. I offer you my services.

HAMILTON
(dry)
Thank you, but no. Her ladyship and I were dancing --

DECATUR
Actually sir, you were trying. She succeeded.

Elizabeth laughs.

ELIZABETH
(to Decatur)
Very well, Lieutenant. I accept your gallant offer.

HAMILTON
Elizabeth -- ?

ELIZABETH
James, be a dear. Please indulge me.

Hamilton nods his assent, gives Decatur a DARK LOOK as he steps away.

Decatur offers his hand to Elizabeth and leads her by the Spanish band.

DECATUR
(to band leader)
Maestro... a 3/4 measure, por favor.

Decatur and Elizabeth glide to the center of the dance floor.

Elizabeth spins before Decatur, stamps her feet and snaps her fingers in time to a rapid musical measure. The guitarists and castanet players echo her, and the floor clears all around the couple in unknowing compliance.

Elizabeth slides into short, quick rushes of 2-3 steps, going to one side, then another. Her hands and arms great moving features, her feet stamping in time to the music --

A sudden break in the tune --

She stops rigid in a picturesque pose, with body bent slightly backwards, hands on hips, and head erect and defiant. She fixes Decatur with her eyes, expectant. He --

-- stamps his feet, snaps his fingers, and steps in perfect response.

Together they bring to life the Fandango, the dance of "The Chase": boy sees girl, girl snubs boy, girl chases boy, then runs away.

Hamilton FUMES from the side. Morris and the other American officers look on OPEN-MOUTHED. Admiral Ball looks pleased with himself.

At the end of certain measures, the music halts abruptly, and the two dancers freeze till it resumes.

Neither touches with the hand or body. But they lock with their eyes --

-- And lose themselves in one another as the dance plays itself out.

Decatur and Elizabeth revel in their dance and each other. When the last measure roars to a halt, they're TIGHTLY EMBRACED, BREATHING HARD, barely within decorum.

The crowd roars its approval, but it doesn't exist for them. They're the CENTER of each other's universe.

WALTER JON WILLIAMS CRITIQUE

Today I received comments on my "The Way of the Peacemaker" short story from mil SF writer Walter Jon Williams.

The story has some good points, but I have to go back to the drawing board.

Again...

Starting up a new space saga and figuring out its rules is no small task it seems.

I knew that going in, but I didn't really know it.

I've worked on different drafts of this story.

And now it seems I'll have to work on another. I do feel that I'm crawling in the right direction, though.

That's something.

MY SNW RESULTS

I got the manuscripts for my SNW 10 subs in the mail today.

My "Hero of the Empire" tale didn't make the cut. Too bad. It was one of my faves.

"Trial by Fire and Mis-Q's" got to the Second Read List (SRL), which is about the quarter-finals.

According to a note on my letter from Dean Wesley Smith, "History's Pawn" came "very close" to making it into the anthology.

That would make it a Finalist story.

I'm not sure how I feel about that since I was aiming for a publication rather than a "very close."

"Shikata ga nai."

All I can do is move on.

Since the Strange New Worlds anthology is no more, there go a couple of ideas I had for what would've been SNW 11. One of 'em was Lieutenant Reginald Barclay saving the Enterprise E from a changeling and a boarding party of Jem'Hadar warriors. Along the way, Barclay blew up a Hirogen relay station drawing power from a black hole.

It would've made an interesting addition to Pocket Book's "Dominion War" tales, me thinks.

Anywho, I'm moving ahead with my "The Way of the Peacemaker" and other original stories.

SNW 10 RESULTS

The results have come in today for the final SNW anthology.

I didn't make it.

Nichevo.

Or as the Japanese would say, "Shikata ga nai." (Can't be helped.)

I did my best, but my submissions apparently fell short.

The good thing is the waiting's over. The winners were contacted on about December 20, 2006. Usually the announcement is made on January 3 of the new year, but it was put off according to undefined legal issues on the part of the Pocket Book lawyers.

SNW was unique in that it was a pro publication consisting of Trek stories for the fans written by the fans. IMHO, a drawback of how it was run was that multiple writers could be published in it up to three times maximum. I feel that the SNW anthology could have been run like the WOTF anthology: winners are published once and then ineligible for further contests thereafter in order to give voice to a wider range of writers--especially since SNW had to be renewed yearly and its life was limited.

Anyhow, SNW was only one market. Getting in would've been a nice feather in one's cap, but not a laurel to rest one's writing career on.

It's time to leave SNW and Trek behind me and concentrate on WOTF and other bigger and better things.

JEANNE CAVELOS CRIT

Today I received a crit from Jeanne Cavelos, my first pro fiction mentor on my story "The Way of the Peacemaker" (formerly "Honor and Justice").

Jeanne's crit was an unexpected bonus.

After being sundered from the Odyssey fold for the last few years, I joined the Odfellow discussion group for the first time late last year. Then I signed up for my third stint on the Odfellow critique group a few weeks ago when Jeanne sent a missive saying that the group needs new blood and she'll be participating. I couldn't sign up soon enough, and I submitted my space opera tale, which I'm prepping for the Writers of the Future SF/F Contest (WOTF).

"The Way of the Peacemaker" is about a galactic guardian in the future who learns the true cost of his oath to protect the innocent. The guardian comes from a line of samurai sworn to protect the innocent of the ages.

I've written a film script based in this Peacemaker universe, but before I market the script, I thought I'd establish the series in fiction and comics first. "The Way of the Peacemaker" is the pilot story. Hopefully, it'll launch in WOTF.

Retro Review: "KING KONG"

Hi all,

Since I don't care for a lot of current releases, I'm writing about Peter Jackson's "King Kong" remake.

In a word...spectacular, clumsy, hilarious, ludicrously self-indulgent, terrifying and far too long.

No, that was more like a spiel.

While there's not an original bone in its oversized body, "King Kong!!!" qualifies as one of the blockbuster films of 2005. The sheer size and spectacle of it screams, "Keep your eyes on me!" And, "Pay no attention to some of the bad miscasting, and scenes that go a little too long." "I'm Kong, and I must be BIG!" No, not big, HUGE!!

I'm not really a fan of remakes or King Kong, so I thought the film could be pretty hoaky. But I was intrigued when I learned that Peter Jackson was helming this flick. I didn't know till lately that the original 1933 flick was something of a passion of his.

A problem with personal projects is running the danger of not working because the director is too close to the material. (Steven Spielberg's Hook and Atom Egoyan's Ararat fall into that category.) Fortunately, Jackson's passion for the material did not dim his creative senses. By combining the best elements of the 1933 and 1976 versions of the film with his own contributions, Jackson has made what many will consider to be the definitive King Kong. There's no need to try this story again; it's doubtful it can be improved on.

Jackson's 2005 King Kong follows the basic storyline of the 1933 original, but with some changes and wrinkles. There are a few direct homages, including a reference to Fay Wray being unavailable for Carl Denham's film because she was "making something for Cooper," a snatch of the hammiest verbatim dialogue from the old screenplay, and a few bars of Max Steiner's theme. Although Jackson says he detests the 1976 version, he borrows freely from it. Some things that happen in this King Kong mirror events from the De Laurentiis one too closely to have occurred by coincidence. (Like the development of a two-way relationship between the girl and Kong, rather than the one-way one from 1933.)

If there's a flaw in King Kong, it's that Jackson spends TOO LONG setting things up. It's understandable that he wants to spend some time with the characters so we get to know them before the action starts, but the 70-minute build-up is overkill. There is an impact to early momentum, and I dozed for a few minutes before the second act kicked in. First we spend some time in a thrillingly recreated 30s New York, and then the film gets stuck in a boat for simply ages with obsessed movie director Carl Denham (Jack Black) and his crew. This interlude, marred as it is by portents of doom and clanging dialogue, is a bit of a trial.

We meet all of the major players during the first hour, where you notice some of the film's major flaws, including the fact that Jackson, fails to establish the relationship between Denham's long time collaborator the successful playwright, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), and Ann (Naomi Watts). Adrien Brody seems somewhat miscast to me as the lead action hero and leading man in love here.

Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson's script doesn't give Jack and Ann a real relationship. Their chemistry is sketchy at best, feeling contrived and rushed: they meet and hate each other one minute, the next time they see each other they are kissing, and then he tells her he "wrote a comedy, just for her."

"Why would you do that" asks Ann.

"Isn't it obvious?" says Jack.

Because Ann is pretty?

That exchange is supposed to convey to the audience the depth of his feelings. But it comes across as forced.

Once the action starts, however, it's difficult to find something more energetic, more daring, and more touching than King Kong. It's worth every penny (and more) that was spent bringing it to the screen.

The CGI work and action scenes are all incredible, and mind blowing, but you get the feeling that it's been done before, oh yeah, because it has, in Jurassic Park! It was as if Jackson, not only remade the original King Kong, but he also remade the original Jurassic Park, so many of the beats, and battles felt like it was taken directly from that film.

As eye candy goes, only Revenge of the Sith equals it from 2005, and King Kong is overall a richer and more satisfying cinematic experience (and this is from someone who's a SF fan). If you think of the 1933 King Kong as a foundation of a house, the 2005 version is the whole thing. Jackson has used Cooper's vision as his blueprint, and has expanded upon it greatly without changing the essential floorplan. The synopsis sounds much the same, but the experience is wholly different.

The old Arabian proverb says this: "And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead." This is, and has been, the story of King Kong, the 25-foot tall giant of an ape who rules his island, but finds man to be the superior predator. Led by his fascination for a blond woman to act in ways contrary to his nature, he is ensnared and brought to a foreign land, where he proves inadequate to counter the forces brought to bear against him. It's easy enough to see King Kong as a parable about man's rapacious approach to nature. That aspect of the story is as evident in Jackson's telling as in the environmentally conscious 1976 version.

Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is a struggling actress who finds herself out of work with no means to pay for a meal. Filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black) is being pursued by his creditors and needs to find a leading lady so he can set sail before the authorities catch him. Fortuitously, it would seem, the two meet, and Ann is soon aboard the Venture, heading for lands unknown. The captain, Engelhorn (Thomas Kretschmann), is a surly chap who doesn't trust Denham. Also aboard the ship is Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), the screenwriter for Denham's latest epic. And there's a hunky actor, Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler), who is intended to play Ann's on-screen love interest. Off-screen, she becomes involved with Jack. The two are involved by the time the ship reaches its destination, Skull Island. There, Ann is kidnapped by the natives and sacrificed to their god, Kong. Instead of killing her, however, the big ape is intrigued by his blond-haired captive, and the two bond - Ann does a vaudeville comedy routine for her captor while he protects her from three T-Rexes. Meanwhile, Jack, Carl, and a group of others from the ship come ashore to look for Ann. They don't find her--at least not initially-- but they encounter a menagerie out of Jurassic Park and insects that might eat horses for a snack.

A great line during this sequence from Bruce who quits the search for Ann for a little spell is: "I'm an actor with a gun who's lost his motivation."

Genius...

Eventually, Ann is rescued, Kong is captured, and the action moves to New York City. Breaking free of his manacles on the first night he is being displayed to the public, Kong locates Ann and climbs to the top of the Empire State Building, where his tragic final stand occurs.

The ending sequence is truly breathtaking, the aerial photography and CGI made me feel as if I was really at the top of the Empire State Building. American soldiers never seemed more evil. My heart actually dropped a few seconds. King Kong feels like and is 3 distinct films, there's the beginning, then the Jurassic Kong in the middle, and the 3rd act feels like a tacted on sequel.

Despite three prominent human actors, the star of the movie is the giant primate. Kong has gone from being an 18-inch high clay puppet to a man in a monkey suit to a beautifully rendered CGI creature. His range of motion and ability to react believably have improved with each incarnation. This Kong uses an amazing range of facial expressions and, when you look into his eyes, you can't believe he isn't real. Andy Serkis, who helped Jackson by "playing" Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, lends his motion capture skills to Kong, and the results are so stunning that one is tempted to believe that Jackson went to a South Pacific Island and found a 25-foot high ape. Kong shows nearly every emotion across the spectrum: puzzlement, rage, amusement, bemusement, possessiveness, tenderness, and affection. And Kong does some things that couldn't have been accomplished using any other special effects technique. Try orchestrating the T-Rex battle another way.

The best of the trio of human performers is Aussie knockout Naomi Watts, who gives an Oscar level performance. When Jack attempts to rescue her from the arms of a sleeping Kong, her face reveals joy, embarrassment, dismay and sadness all in one beat.

Naomi has the most difficult job--not only is the role physical, but it requires her to play off something that isn't there. (For better or for worse this is becoming the norm, rather than the exception, in big-budget motion pictures). Like Kong, Ann must traverse a vast emotional range, from horror and fear, to acceptance, to caring. Adrien Brody does the best he can with a thankless role. Jack's part is to fall in love with Ann, then run around the island chasing her. In New York, he gets to participate in a car chase, but after that, his biggest contribution is to ride an elevator in the Empire State Building. Jack Black, an unusual choice for Carl Denham, plays the movie maker like a cross between Cecil B. DeMille and P.T. Barnum. Black's portrayal is primarily straight, and he is effective, although there are occasions when the actor's cheesy personality peeks through.

Black's character, Denham, is a "by any means necessary" type of filmmaker, where he will lie, cheat, or steal to get his project finished. He convinces everyone from his actor, to the ship's crewmates that they are filming in Singapore, when he's really taking them into the dangerous unknown. In many ways, Kong is not only a movie about the love of a woman and her monkey, but also a love letter to filmmaking. As sleazy as Denham is at times, you have to admire his passion for getting his film done. It's also fun because you don't really know if that passion is because he's broke and he's desperate, or if he really loves the creative process. I'd bet that it's both.

Jack Black is almost fatally miscast in this, though. He doesn't fit the part and his manic performance, at times seems out of place. But he does manage to hold it together, next to Kong and Watts. The film rises and falls in part based on his shoulders and for the most part it works - just not as well as it should. It's a contradiction to say he's wrong for the part and then claim that he's good in this, but the best way to describe it is, you get used to him. Some of his line deliveries are almost too understated, especially the most famous one about "It was beauty that killed the beast." It didn't have the emotional punch that it should have.
The cornerstone of the film isn't the CGI action/adventure material; it's the relationship between Kong and Ann. Here's where the movie's heart lies, and for King Kong to be more than a visual extravaganza, Jackson has to hit us beneath the left rib cage. The two bond throughout and the film's soul stays intact. In 1933, Ann was terrified of Kong. He treated her like a plaything, and she hated and feared him. When Kong died, we felt a little sadness, but nothing overwhelming. In 1976, Lorenzo Semple Jr.'s most important innovation was to have the female lead (called Dwan, played by Jessica Lange) reciprocate the Beast's feelings. Kong was fascinated by Dwan. After an initial bout of fear and anger, she accepted him as a gentle protector. Atop the World Trade Center, she risked her life to save his, and her world came apart when he fell. The male lead (Jeff Bridges) was also shown as being sympathetic to Kong.

For the 2005 version, Jackson has followed the 1976 movie's lead, and developed a tender, two-way relationship between Ann and Kong. This is meticulously advanced over the course of the movie--particularly in three scenes. The first has Ann doing a vaudeville song-and-dance routine that amuses Kong and convinces him not to kill her. The second has Ann moving behind Kong during a battle with three T-Rexes, acknowledging him as her "champion." And the third involves a frozen pond in Central Park, and may represent King Kong's most magical moment, and Jackson's lasting contribution to the legend. If you see that bit, you'll know what I'm talking about. Unlike in the 1976 movie, Jack is not kindly disposed toward Kong. This may be why, in the end, the bond between Ann and Kong seems stronger than the one between Ann and Jack. And the reunion of the two human lovers after Kong's plunge rings hollow. We don't really care about Ann and Jack. The character we do care about has just died. His final moments with Ann are quietly heartbreaking.
One of the most difficult things about King Kong may be picking a favorite scene, especially since the final two hours are packed with candidates. Action-adventure lovers have the dino-rampage, featuring raptors (I liked the Jurassic Park versions better) chasing down a pack of brontosaurs; the triple T-Rex smackdown (a tour de force that lasts about 10 minutes); an insect attack that will make bug-phobes squirm (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is tame by comparison); Kong's attempts to reclaim his stolen bride; and the final Empire State Building battle. For me, the quiet moments are in many ways more rewarding: Kong and Ann bonding while watching a sunset, and the playfulness of Central Park. The latter is more rewarding with tragedy looming so close.

The musical score is nondescript, but that's not James Newton Howard's fault. He was selected by Jackson late in the process to replace Howard Shore, and only had a couple of months to write and record everything. The best thing that can be said about the music is that it's never intrusive. Visually, as one would expect, King Kong is a marvel. The decision to do no location shooting allows the Skull Island scenes to be eerie and claustrophobic. And Jackson's re-creation of Depression-era New York, while not rigorously accurate historically, fits nicely into a nostalgia mold.

King Kong could easily be 30 minutes shorter. But it's a labor of love for Jackson. It shows in every frame, in the clever script and in the way he photographs his stars with the loving texture of 1930s pin-ups. Most of all, he establishes a Depression-era aura of dashed dreams and rebuilt hopes and turns out an entertainment worth remembering.

SIT REP

At the moment, I'm still in a kind of holding pattern writingwise:

-Still waiting for the results of the SNW 10 contest

-Eking out my revision of my rom com script "Twice In A Lifetime"

-Organizing the third script reading on the WeHo Screenwriting Group (the first had two crits & the second had four)

-And prepping my space opera short story "The Way of the Peacemaker" for critiquing by some pro writers before I send it to WOTF.

It seems I'm on the cusp of big things while the winter doldrums're on.

Hailing frequencies closed.

Review: “ROCKY BALBOA”

Yo, Rocky’s back for one last round.

First James Bond gets back to basics, now, 30 years after the Philly southpaw came out swinging, Sylvester Stallone has returned to Rocky's humble roots with a stripped down edition that comes close to capturing the soul of the original -- which I saw on TV and rental.

The first one, with a budget of less than $1 million, was a smash hit -- the 78th greatest movie by the AFI, pulling in more than $56 million in 1976 dollars. Reportedly written over a weekend, it won an Oscar for Best Picture and became one of the smash hits of the‘70s.

The only installment I saw in theaters was 1990’s torturous “Rocky V.” Afterwards, I swore I’d never do it again. But I went and did it...

Dropping the Roman numerals, "Rocky Balboa" -- the sixth in the series-- defies all expectations with a low-key production. Just as he did back in 1976, Rocky -- and by extension Stallone -- is climbing into the ring as a man with something to prove. And for the first time in thirty years, you just might find yourself cheering him on.

With his beloved Adrian (Talia Shire’s alive and well) having passed away of cancer, Rocky trudges along the streets of his South Philly neighborhood like a man who's been beaten down by the ravages of time and bittersweet memories of all-too-distant glories.

He's only too happy to regale patrons at his eatery, Adrian's, with those stories, but his habit of living in the past is beginning to grate on his old brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young, who's been there for all six rounds), who's no longer wants to accompany Rocky on those ritual tours through his old haunts. Rocky also tries to spend quality time with his grown son (Milo Ventimiglia), but the young man wishes to climb out from under his famous father's shadow.

Fortunately the Rocko we know and love snaps back into form when an installment of ESPN's "Man vs. Machine," which pits two athletes from different eras against each other in a computer-simulated competition, has current heavyweight champ Mason "The Line" Dixon (real-life boxer Antonio Tarver) going up against Balboa in a hypothetical bout that gives the Italian Stallion the decision. Keep in mind that Mason isn’t a villain. Just a guy with his own problems, being unpopular for having faced no real contenders in his rise to the heavy weight title. He’s Rocky in Rocky III all over again, but the movie isn’t about him.

Anywho, Rocky's back in training for the real thing, calcified joints and all, much to the embarrassment of Robert. Though everyone tells him he's likely to be murderized, the sixty-something Italian Stallion quietly accepts the challenge, throws himself into a few weeks of training and steps in the ring, with the philosophy, "It's not how hard you hit, but how much you can take and stay on your feet."

Yes, it's improbable, but the premise of the original "Rocky" was almost as hare-brained, and its lure of the impossible dream and appeal of not so much winning but "going the distance" is what made it such an influential, often imitated classic.

Conti’s score kicks in full bore for the expected training montage. Once again, good ol' Rocko pounds away at frozen slabs of beef, knocks back a glass of raw eggs and, of course, runs up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After that, it's off to Las Vegas for the big showdown with Dixon.

The one area in which Stallone has consistently shined as director of the “Rocky” films is in his well choreographed and edited fight sequences. He repeats the feat in “Balboa,” giving us our money's worth in a bloody celebration of brute stamina. While the ending of the fight is never really in doubt, it's surprising how much genuine tension Stallone manages to wring out of this unlikely battle, in which both fighters unload on each other with everything they've got.

Stallone's grass-roots approach works well. Passing on studio sets in favor of actual locations with extensive handheld camerawork (incorporating both 35mm and high-def film), Stallone reconnects with a lot of what made the character so endearing in the first place. He shows a discreet use of foreground and background to highlight or underline emotional moments. A scene in which father and son confront one another may be Stallone's finest moment on film.

In addition to all the familiar faces -- Tony Burton also returns as Balboa corner man, Duke -- Irish actress Geraldine Hughes does affecting work as the grown-up Marie (played three decades ago by Jodi Letitizia), now a hard-working single mother of a Steps, a teenage thug in training (James Francis Kelly III), whom Rock has taken under his wing out of the goodness of his big heart. He also offers Marie a job; this friendship hints at elements of romance, but remains touchingly tactful.

Of course, Rocky wouldn't be Rocky without that signature theme, and Conti has turned it into elegiac lament for the first half of the picture before cranking it up to full throttle for that last hurrah, as well as backing amusing end-credits footage of tourists from all over re-enacting the iconic running up of those Philadelphia Museum of Art steps.

In interviews, Stallone has said that he intends “Rocky Balboa” to be a bookend to the original film and, as promised, viewers can leap directly from that movie to this one without having to make time for the other four installments. Aside from a passing reference to his victory over Apollo Creed and brief glimpses of Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago, the events of “Rockys” II-IV go unmentioned, while the, um, disliked “Rocky V” has been erased from continuity, along with any mention of Rocky's supposed brain damage. “Rocky Balboa” is also filled with numerous visual cues and references to the '76 picture. The result is a film that's as much a nostalgia trip for the audience as it is for its star.

The goodwill generated by this approach carries viewers through the movie's dead spots, including one too many visits to Adrian’s grave, Rocky's awkward attempts to bond with Steps, and an underwritten storyline involving Mason Dixon's own crisis of confidence. A subplot about Dixon and his manager also suddenly disappears. It's in these scenes that Stallone's limitations as a writer and director show up. After thirty years he knows his own character inside and out, but he still struggles to write convincing dialogue for anyone other than Rocky.

The film isn’t about Rocky carrying on conversations, though. The script comes from an honest place, and the characters have real emotional centers. On its own terms, “Rocky Balboa” is only a modestly entertaining movie, but taken in context, it's an entirely satisfying conclusion to the “Rocky” saga. It's not so much a sequel or even a remake for a new generation of moviegoers as it's a retranslation for the old one: an irresistible statement that "Yo, life ain't over till it's over."

Will we be seeing a weathered Rambo brought back to basics next?

Reinvent Trek or Go into the Next Century?

I recently came across an article on SyFy Portal in which "Trouble with Tribbles" TOS episode scribe and TNG contributor David Gerrold said he believes that the classic series (TOS) has to be rebooted in order to get
back that old Star Trek feeling.

There have been some great reinventions like "Battlestar Galactica" (BSG), "Batman Begins," and "Casino Royale."

I believe, though, that Trek is one franchise with the elasticity and depth that allows people to explore Trek's essence with new characters and storylines as opposed to rebooting the same cast of characters every ten years.

IMHO, BSG doesn't quite fall in that same category because the original was around for only two years, leaving a lot of new territory for Ron Moore and company to explore. Also the premise of BSG is based on the last remnants of humanity fighting off extinction and finding Earth. Either they fail and the show ends or they succeed and the show ends.

Also, for those who're familiar with the subject, I'd liken Trek a little bit to the US Constitution in that the Constitution has been adapted from how the Founding Fathers first conceived it to be made relevant to following generations of Americans.

I favor new characters and storylines for new generations of Trek fans rather than new incarnations of overly familiar characters and their situations. Every chapter of a saga has a beginning, middle, and end. I feel it's best to move on into new territory rather than tweak series canon.

If someone good like Ron Moore, Bryan Singer, or Michael Stracyznski were to do a reinvention, I could see it being "interesting." Who can argue with what Ron Moore and his crew have done with BSG? As those who may recall my earlier posts on the subject, I highly doubt that Abrams will do justice to a young Kirk story in the upcoming (if it's ever made) Trek XI.

SIT REP

Busy, busy, busy...

The New Year's kinda flew by for me in a daze.

I'm tweaking my WOTF space opera sub "The Way of the Peacemaker" for some pro readers, and getting good comments from other fledgling writers.

I'm getting comments on my Stephen Decatur script "Stars and Stripes Forever."

I'm working on my rom com script "Twice In A Lifetime." I'm roughly halfway through the beat sheet. Then I'll do character profiles. Then I'll start rewriting...

Ugh...

And I'm organizing a group read for a drama script penned by a person on the WeHo (West Hollywood) online screenwriters group that I'm trying out. As the manager, I'm committed to this event, but I doubt I'll stay long term with them since that group isn't very lively and it can be a fair amount of work managing it if you want to do the job right. :-)

I'd also committed myself to reading the featured script and perhaps entering in an online workshop with the other writer to work on other scripts. Must be careful that I don't overload myself when I'm not working.

Oh, and I'm still waiting on the results for SNW 10. Because there's a new editor at Simon & Schuster Books who's judging, the normal reporting time has been pushed back from the normal January 3 date to...sometime in January.

Nichevo.

BERMAN SAYS IT ISN'T HIS FAULT

SyFy Portal reports that Rick Berman, among other things, says UPN didn't help the "Enterprise" (ENT) series stay on the air.

He blames UPN for shifting from dramas to reality shows that cater to young women like "Beauty and the Geek" and "America's Top Model."

I'd say UPN's change in priorities didn't help, but if he and Brannon Braga had produced episodes that relied on character, dialogue, new plots, etc. rather than had the actors slather ointment on each other in their underwear, give neural pressure therapy while half-dressed, recycled old Trek stories, etc. to get ratings, ENT could've gone a full seven years like its predecessor series.

What studio would say "no" to making money?

Paramount's trying to revive the franchise after all with a young Kirk
story for Trek XI that I suspect will be a one-off at best. After seeing how "Alias" got canceled and "Lost" really begin to lose it in the current third season, I can't say I've got a lot of confidence in anything with JJ Abrams' name attached to it. Too bad Paramount passed on Bryan Singer ("X Men 1 & 2"; "Superman Returns") and a Romulan War prequel trilogy pitched by Eric Jendreson ("Band of Brothers") to settle on Abrams. I wonder if the current Paramount studio heads'll try recasting Picard and gang next?

It seems to me that with some financial sense, ENT could've been continued on cable with a reduced budget. Who's complaining about the SG1, Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica production quality?

Boris

SNW 10 COVER RELEASE

I learned today that the SNW 10 cover was released along with a publicity page.

There's a lot of hope among the faithful that the anthology will be renewed despite market changes. I really like the cover, but it does give me the feeling that SNW 10 may be the final voyage.

Me thinks this drawing of the Enterprise D's saucer section crashing in flames was drawn from that trusty ship crashing for the final count on the planet Veridian III in the film "Generations."

And based on the publicity page, the anthology will have stories that examine the meaning of the Federation.


I will not count my chickens before they're hatched. But the stories I turned in this year do explore the benefit the Federation's had on the known galaxy. And I know that the submissions I mailed in this year are better than what I entered in the last two when I finished on the Second Read List. I also received excellent advice from a number of fellow writers. Among them are David DeLee (SNW 8 & 9 author); Phil Kaldon (fellow 2004 Clarionite/physicist); Tom Wilson and several other scribes on Critters. Dayton Ward (Trek novelist and SNW alumnus) also kindly commented on an early draft of one of my stories.

If this is SNW’s last call, I really hope to get in while it’s still there. As Dean Wesley Smith tells us SNW hopefuls, New York is shut down from now till January 2, 2007 or so. News about the TOC (Table of Contents) should come out some time next month.

I’ll see if the gods are with me then.

SIT REP

Let's see...

I just concluded a week of getting comments on my "Way of the Peacemaker" story on Critters. The story's good, but needs some adjusting, which I'll try to do this weekend. I'll look forward to learning which pro author will be lined up to read the story before I shoot it off to WOTF in, say January 2007.

I've also typed up new scenes for my American "Master and Commander" script, "Stars and Stripes Forever." But I haven't added them into the current draft yet and seen how they mesh together.

And I'm getting my Chinese Joan of Arc script, "Heaven's Mandate," looked over by a new screenwriting group called WeHo Online Screenwriters Group that I joined on November 22, 2006. I think I'm one of the very first members right after the group owner, who's a production assistant at Fox. The group is just a few weeks old and I'm still getting a feel for how it's turning out. They needed people to submit a script for their first group crit session, so I submitted mine to give 'em something to chew on. The first session should be some time this month.

Then I've got my romantic comedy to take care of next before I get hold of the script consultant I have in mind for reading my 3 scripts before I send 'em to the major script contests in 2007.

I'm curious about the upcoming "Eragon" flick. I may write a review of it.

All I have to do is make the time and energy with extended holiday work hours and a bad economy slowing things down for the sixth year in a row.

I expect I'll manage.

Hailing frequences closed.

RETRO REVIEW: "CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON"

In two words: Martial Artistry.

Looking back six years, soon to be seven, from this point, one can still say director Ang Lee is a world class auteur who isn’t afraid to take a chance.

Before helming "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," Lee worked on a variety of projects from the Taiwanese family dramas "The Wedding Banquet" and "Eat Drink Man Woman" to the slice of '70s Americana "The Ice Storm" and the Jane Austen adaptation "Sense and Sensibility." More recent credits include a film adaptation of everyone’s fave raging green monster comic hero, "The Hulk," and "Brokeback Mountain’s" romance between two cowboys in ‘60s God-fearing Texas. Director Ang Lee appeared an unlikely person to direct a kung fu flick; such a film seems beneath him.

As it turns out, Lee is not only a lifelong fan of the genre, his greatest filmmaking goal was to make a lavish martial arts epic.

Director Ang Lee: "The film is a kind of a dream of China, a China that probably never existed, except in my boyhood fantasies in Taiwan. Of course my childhood imagination was mainly fired by the martial arts movies I grew up with and by the novels of romance and derring-do I read instead of doing my homework. That these two kinds of dreaming should come together now, in a film I was able to make in China, is a happy irony for me."

Watching "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," it's clear that all of Lee's work has been a mere warm-up to this staggering accomplishment. "Crouching Tiger" is even more than an exhilarating reinvigoration of the martial arts movie--it's a thrilling testament to the transporting power of film.

Note the term "reinvigoration" as opposed to "reinvention," for in keeping with being a reverential fan, Lee doesn't tamper with time-worn convention in adapting Wang Du Lu's 18th Century Qing dynasty-set novel (the fourth in a series of five). Basic plot strands ring familiar. After many years of legend-building combat, famous and feared warrior Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) is ready to give up his violent ways--that is, after completing one last mission: avenging the murder of his master at the hands of the notorious criminal known as Jade Fox (Cheng Pei Pei). But Li is ready to make one major gesture toward a different life, and that is giving up his fabled sword, the Green Destiny. He asks his longtime friend and swordswoman ally Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) to give the sword to their mutual benefactor, Sir Te (Lung Sihung), for safekeeping. When she does, Shu Lien meets the young lady Jiao Long Yu, or Jen (Zhang Ziyi), who expresses her fascination with the sword. Soon after it is placed in Sir Te’s trophy case, the Green Destiny is stolen, Mu Bai and Shu Lien leap into a quest to recover the sword, which is the mere jumping-off point for a sweeping tale of action, intrigue, and romance.

In "Crouching Tiger," that motion has its own poetry, for these semi-gods and demi-devils possess a buoyancy to match their gravity. The film's first action scene, with Shu Lien chasing the sword's thief (who, we soon learn, is Jen), sets the tone and the rules. The two fight hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot. Jen suddenly floats up, as if on the helium of her young arrogance, and canters up and down the courtyard walls as if they were velvet carpets, with Shu Lien in urgent pursuit.

The script by James Schamus, Wang Huiling and Tsai Kuojung unfolds like a comic book, with the characters and their circumstances being painted using wide brush stokes. Lee’s protagonists are bigger than life and their quest is the kind of epic endeavor that pits good against evil, with an innocent caught in between. Yet, despite the film's grandiose feel, there are enough intimate moments for us to get to know the characters. One of the primary elements of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is the way it contrasts Shu Lien with Jen. Each is a prisoner of her lifestyle, yearning for what the other has. Shu Lien, a warrior and wanderer all her life, would like nothing more than to settle down and end her loneliness. Jen, the pampered daughter of a powerful official, craves the freedom that she believes comes with Shu Lien's single status.

One of the film's most noteworthy elements was the first-ever screen pairing of two of Hong Kong cinema's biggest stars, Yeoh and Chow. Surprisingly, these icons actually take secondary positions to beautiful young newcomer Zhang Ziyi. As Jen, the seemingly innocent and innocuous daughter of prominent political figure Governor Yu (Li Fa Zeng), Zhang is a real find, holding her own in all aspects and carrying the picture with ease once the focus settles squarely on her. The conflicting forces battling for influence over Jen's soul is "Crouching Tiger's" main concern, and without an actress as gifted and captivating as Zhang in the pivotal role, it's difficult to imagine the story being quite as involving as it is.

But there's no denying the enormous contribution Yeoh and Chow make to the film. The two formed a dynamic duo, even displaying sides of their ability that they've never had an opportunity to reveal before. The ever-charismatic and commanding Chow (the T'ang emperor in the upcoming "Curse of the Golden Flower"), making his bow in this type of action film, proves to be as natural with a sword as he is with a gun (his usual cinematic weapon of choice); but his stunts aren't as heavy duty as those of Yeoh, who is given ample opportunity to show off and even elevate her well-established athleticism and grace in the spectacular fights staged by the renowned martial arts choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping ("Fist of Legend," "Matrix," and "Hero"). But the two are even more impressive in the dramatic scenes. They have a nicely understated chemistry that lends heartrending pathos to their characters' relationship. Li and Shu Lien have long been in love, but they've denied their passion in honor of the memory of Shu Lien's late fiancé, a brother by oath to Li. Their tortured longing is subtly, wrenchingly conveyed in Yeoh and Chow's vividly expressive eyes.

When production first kicked off, the film seemed cursed, though.

"We started shooting in the Gobi Desert," said Ang Lee. "That night the crew got lost in the desert until 7 a.m. We finally got going, and after the second shot, a sandstorm came in." Could things get worse?

"The Gobi is the hottest, dryest place on earth," said producer Bill Kong. "So each morning we lit incense for good luck. Well, we had dreadful luck--it rained sheets, nonstop, ruining our schedule. After a while one of the local people came around and said the gods must be smiling on us. We asked why. 'Because you burned the incense,' he said. 'We burn the incense when we want it to rain.'"

With good or bad luck, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon offered a rough challenge to say the least. A few difficulties were: a $15 million action movie that was also to be a poignant, tragic romance; a fight choreographer, Yuen Wo-ping, who had won international acclaim for his work on "The Matrix" and was bound to clash with the soft-spoken, hard-to-budge Lee; a top-flight all-Asian cast featuring Chow Yun Fat (Hong Kong), Michelle Yeoh (Malaysia), Zhang Ziyi (Beijing) and Chang Chen (Taiwan). Only one of the stars--Zhang, then a 19-year-old ingenue--spoke anything like the classical mainland Mandarin that Lee demanded. On top of these speed bumps, Yeoh injured her knee and needed a month's rehab in the U.S. and the whole ordeal was pretty damned exhausting by all accounts.

"We shot around the clock with two teams," says Lee. "I didn't take one break in eight months, not even for half a day. I was miserable--I just didn't have the extra energy to be happy. Near the end, I could hardly breathe. I thought I was about to have a stroke."

As one sage (whose name I forget) said, "Dying is easy, filmmaking is hard."

But through his agony Lee produced exactly what he hoped to create--a blending of Eastern physical dexterity and Western storytelling and intensity of performance. High art meets high spirits on the trampoline of an elaborate plot. "Crouching Tiger" is contemplative, and it kicks ass.

"Crouching Tiger" combines incredible action sequences with elements of romantic melodrama and superhero derring-do, as visually stunning as it is inventive like no other Chinese period film before or since. It has a reserved slot on many critics' Top Ten lists and made a splash both at the US box office and when the 2000 Academy Award nominations were announced. Paradoxically, the film hasn’t been as well received in China and the rest of the Far East as the slew of imitators it spawned in following years. More on that later.

The film's hallmark is its standout action sequences, of which there are five or six, depending on how you count. All of them are eye-popping and spectacularly choreographed by Yuen with special effects being used to enhance the natural athleticism of the participants. The best of these sequences is Shu Lien’s jaw dropping rooftop chase of Jen from one side of Beijing to the other, using a Peter Pan-like ability to almost fly. It's beautifully filmed, perfectly composed, and thrilling from start to finish. Another segment worth mentioning is a battle in the treetops, where Mu Bai and Jen leap from branch to branch as they do battle. These sequences are the kind of action that haven’t been equaled before or since--even by Yuen.

Lee and cinematographer Peter Pau make "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" a stunning visual experience even when the action is static. From a glorious matte shot of ancient Beijing to the verdant splendor of the surrounding forest to the majesty of Wudan Mountain, the film never ceases to dazzle our eyes and arrest our attention. Tan Dun's gentle, occasionally haunting score provides the perfect musical backdrop for the story, never calling undue attention to itself.

Lee is a visionary and a perfectionist; he demands more than his colleagues can freely give. For the dapper, amiable Chow the experience was often "awful. The first day I had to do 28 takes just because of the language. That's never happened before in my life."

Lee drove Yeoh, whose family's language is English, nearly to tears with his insistence on precise speech. But the beautiful action star thinks it was worth the trouble. "I've been waiting 15 years to work with this guy," she says. "He's gentle and very emotional. During a sad scene at the end of the film, he kept telling me to do different things, and when he'd come over I'd see he was red-eyed, teary. He gets so completely involved. And when he says, 'Good take' after a shot, he really means it."

For all its pan-Asian star power, "Crouching Tiger" depends on Zhang, in only her second film at the time. The actress says she labored under "a pressure not to disappoint the director. I felt I was a mouse and Ang Lee a lion." When first seen, Jen seems lovely but unformed, a dreamy adventuress, a spoiled rich girl with a skill to match her will. Gradually, though, Jen (or, rather, Zhang) reveals a more toxic, intoxicating beauty. Will she become a fearless heroine or a ferocious killer? Zhang, surely, is guilty of one crime: she steals the film. "She allows the audience to pour themselves into her imagination," Lee says. "It's not really her in the movie, it's you. That's beyond acting. It's cinematic charisma."

Before shooting, Zhang and her desert outlaw paramour Chang (Lo in the film) worked with an acting coach. Chow and Yeoh crammed to speak Mandarin. And throughout, Lee was learning the limitations in the laws of stunt physics from the martial master Yuen. Movies are an education on the fly, with pop quizzes every moment. How apt, then, that the theme of "Crouching Tiger" should be teaching. In this war of the generations, the adults are as eager to instruct the young as the kids are to rebel against authority. In life as in martial arts, knowledge is power. And only the most powerful, like Chow's Mu Bai, can share it. He hopes to share it with Jen. Teaching this bright, willful girl is as close as he will come to fatherhood--even if the job carries fatal risks.

In addition to paying careful attention to Chinese legends and metaphysical beliefs, Lee has injected many other elements into "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." He presents the martial arts sequences with a degree of reverence that does not call to mind the chopsocky campiness the average viewer might associate with the genre. This is not Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan; it's something entirely different and, in its own way, more wonderful. Lee also draws upon the work of other filmmakers like John Ford and Akira Kurosawa in putting the finishing touches on the film.

The movie hearkens to Asian action movies of around 30 years ago. It mirrors famous fight scenes from two films by the action master King Hu: "Come Drink with Me," in which the young, fierce Cheng Peipei defeats an inn full of martial studs, and "A Touch of Zen," with two knights doing battle in a grove of bamboo trees. Lee had the inspired--or crackpot--idea of staging the fight between Mu Bai and Jen on the trees' branches, 60 ft. in the air.

"I'd fantasized about this since boyhood," Lee says, "but a lot of my ideas weren't feasible or didn't look good. Nobody, including Yuen, wanted to do the tree scene, for a simple reason: it's almost impossible. The first three days of shooting were a complete waste. There were 20 or 30 guys below the actors trying to make them float. It was just chaotic." Finally it worked--a scene so buoyant that the audience soars along with the stars.

Humor plays as important a part as the romance and adventure. Lee includes secondary characters for comic relief. The story is serious, but the film has a healthy, self-aware sense of humor about itself, best shown by the parallel romance between Jen and Lo. The circumstances behind their meeting are wholly comic; she chases after him for an insane distance after he steals... her comb. The light touch is beguiling and completely convincing, befitting the playfulness of a young, impetuous love.

One rock ‘em, sock ‘em smack down takes place in a teahouse (the ancient Chinese equivalent of an old Western bar). Newly run off from her husband and reveling in her freedom, Jen talks trash to a whole troop of kung fu masters come to ask for a friendly match and brings the place crashing down on them in a battle where the laughs cone as fast as the punches and weapon strikes. Lee is constantly winking at the audience, reminding viewers not to take anything too seriously.

Though the film ends in a question mark instead of a period, there's hardly a criticism to make. Paced with the rich flavor and patience of maple syrup, this tiger/dragon drama takes flight during intermittent scuffles--therein lies the real magic.

If the movie has one weakness, though, it may be its dialogue, or, more accurately, the delivery of the dialogue. This was the gripe that many Chinese viewers had with it: except for Zhang Ziyi, the accents of the non-Mandarin speaking principal actors are less than authentic, putting it politely. In America, the dialogue suffers from an unfortunate translation problem. The lines are meant to be spoken in a kind of classic way, with little or no modern slang. Sadly, these lines translate to such trite statements like, "I have not yet avenged my master." It seems corny, and weakens the film's impact.

Fortunately, the movie transcends dialogue. Also, as I understand it, many Chinese don’t understand heroes who break the rules and rebel against authority. They tend to favor stories that uphold familial piety and Chinese nationalism. Themes that the film apparently didn’t focus on enough for Chinese viewers when we see that subsequent epic martial arts films grossed higher in the Far East than did "Crouching Tiger."

In my opinion, "Crouching Tiger" is a hybrid that goes beyond its mold. It's like a calligraphic scroll and Taoist painting brought to life. The screenplay delivers with several story lines intermingled, all evoking the full spectrum of human emotion. You can feel physically empowered, yet your spirit is seduced by something more subtle. What leaves an impression even more enduring than the spectacular action, breathtaking images, and lovely melodies are the people--their personalities, their emotions, their struggles, the hard lessons that they learn.

Thematically, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has a rich underlying foundation. It ruminates on the true nature of freedom and how everyone, regardless of their circumstances, is a prisoner of one sort or another. Of equal importance is the way it balances the timeless equation of love, honor, and sacrifice. It succeeds as a great pulp yarn, a historical drama, an epic love story, a humorous action tale, and a modern feminist fable. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has something for everyone.

However much the middle-aged Ang Lee suffered in making this exquisite film, he should take a little pleasure in knowing that he helped realize the young Ang Lee's dream and given the world a mythic tale that soars across cultures.

GREGORY FROST CRIT

Today I got a crit from Greg Frost on a short short story of mine.

My story's called "The Automatic Pen" in which a genius inventor builds a wormhole to contact aliens and seek their help with fixing another invention of his, the automatic pen.

I wrote it as a short tall tale set in the present written a la some classic American southern writers like Mark Twain and O. Henry.

My experiment didn't appeal to Greg Frost.

Nichevo.

It was good practice, though.

To paraphrase someone whose name I forget: "One has to dare to be bad."